Adopted or Orphan?

The following is from a message that I heard in 2008 by Pastor Andrew Gross entitled; “From an Orphan Spirit to the Spirit of Adoption”

Do you ever feel . . .

• A gnawing sense of insecurity about relationships?
• It is only a matter of time before you are rejected?
• A need to protect yourself when getting closer?
• A basic instinct to flee from relationships?
• The need to make “exit plans”?
• The need to day-dream about “Plan B”?
• The need to fight because others don’t have your best interest in mind?
• The need to preemptively reject others?
• An automatic suspicion of those in power?
• The need to respond out of all proportion to unintentional snubs?
• That disagreements, corrections, or constructive criticisms from others are really masks for disrespect, dismissal, or rejection?

This belief or feeling is an ‘Orphan Spirit’; a sneaking suspicion that you are rejected, you will be rejected, and you deserve to be rejected.

Am I talking to the right audience?

Imagine a community in which people believe . . .

• I don’t belong here
• I’m not wanted here
• My contribution is under-appreciated here
• People wouldn’t miss me if I disappeared today
• I don’t feel valued here
• I don’t feel safe in relationships here
• I can’t really be myself here
• If others saw the real me, they would reject me
• People don’t accept me

But what is the “Spirit of Adoption?” 

It is a certainty that you are accepted

• I belong
• I am included
• I am known
• I am desired
• I am wanted
• I am cherished
• I am treasured

“For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.” (Romans 8:15)

“But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!” Therefore, you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.” (Galatians 4:4-7)

“having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will” (Ephesians 1:5)

With the Spirit of Adoption comes the certainty of

• God’s goodness as your Daddy
• Your security as His child
• A wide, broad mindset of confidence

We need to make this shift, but HOW?

The Problem:  You don’t believe that God is good

The Solution: Fix your eyes on the character of God

Check the adoption papers

Rivet your thoughts and your imagination onto the Truth

 “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.” (Exodus 34:6-7)

How much more does your heavenly Father know how to give good gifts.  (See Matthew 7:11-12)

“Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”  (Luke 12:32)

 “For men indeed swear by the greater, and an oath for confirmation is for them an end of all dispute.  Thus God, determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath, that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil, where the forerunner has entered for us, even Jesus, having become High Priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. (Hebrews 6:16-20)

All Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.